


The First Time

by azn-jack-fiend (ajf)



Category: Into the Badlands (TV)
Genre: F/M, Ficlet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 10:45:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5413895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ajf/pseuds/azn-jack-fiend
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first book Sunny reads.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The First Time

**THE CAT IN THE HAT**  
**BY DR. SEUSS**

> _the sun did not shine._  
>  _it was too wet to play._  
>  _so we sat in the house_  
>  _all that cold, cold, wet day._

The rain beat against the roof like a malediction. It was hard to hear him read underneath the hammering. In the little bed she edged closer, close enough that the side of her cheek almost touched his hesitant lips. 

His words came slowly, but they were perfectly, gracefully formed. They’d read this book together many times. 

“Your turn,” he said when he was done, expecting her to read while he followed.  

“You can read the rest of the book yourself. You’re ready.” 

She believed in him. She believed in his recovery. He was wounded just as much as any other soldier who came to her, although his limbs were whole and he fought so demon-fast that only a few blades had ever drawn a mark across his smooth brown skin. Wounded all the same, because literacy was his birthright and this world had cut it from him. 

“Are you sure?” he asked. Now that they were lovers she could read the language of his body, decode the curl of his lip, the tilt of his half-closed eyelid. So many other questions... did she understand their lack of a future? Would she grow to hate him for keeping her a secret? 

“I’m sure," she said. She'd never been more sure in her life.

“Then I’ll go on by myself."

So he read on. 

She knew she should edge upwards, get some distance, and crane her neck to follow along. Just to make sure he pronounced every syllable. But it was so much sweeter to hold him tight instead, wrap her arms around his chest, rest her cheek against his shoulder. 

_I have you. Whatever happens in the future, I have you now_.

> __then our mother came in  
>  and she said to us two,  
>  'did you have any fun?  
>  tell me. what did you do?'
> 
> __and sally and i did not know  
>  what to say.  
>  should we tell her  
>  the things that went on there that day?


End file.
